17.9.10

In my various updates related to Rodney Tentakle, I haven't really touched upon the extensive rogue's gallery that Dave has put together for the story's universe. They are an interesting bunch to say the least! Encompassing everything from ancient gods, to sentient humvees right down to electric cat ladies.

One of my favourite of the bunch, though (their description, in particular, was of the things that turned me on to the comic when Dave pitched it to me) are the 'Mechamechamangamen,' hyper-cute automatons that hide a majorly mean streak beneath their sugar-coated exterior. Basically, like an M&M that has a hidden layer of explosions and death instead of chocolate.

With a name like the (deep breath) Mechamechamangamen, I couldn't help but give these little guys a heavily Japanese animated look. I took inspiration from classic Japanese creations such as Tezuka's famous Astro Boy, to the not dissimilar videogame character Megaman.

My design process is pretty clear on these two pages. I tend to begin with a page of doodles and messy sketches as I try to figure out what the character will look like. Sometimes it'll take quite a few pages to strike upon a design I like, other times (like in this case) I sort out a design pretty quickly.

Once that's done, I do a page with a more refined version of the character. I try to find out as I go along certain little details (such as, in this case, the underlying robotic-skeletal structure of the character). I might also do an animation-esque turnaround of the character, just to get a good idea in my head of how the character will look in 3D space.